Islamic Group in Pakistan Boycotts Elections, Opposition Sweeps

 
The Islamic group and some other political parties in Pakistan didn”t participate in the parliamentary elections held on Monday Feb, 18th, 2008, while opposition parties have achieved a landslide win.
“We decided to boycott the elections because they are unconstitutional and because they are under supervision of Pervez Musharraf because we don”t recognize his legitimacy as president”, said Abdul Ghaffar Aziz a spokesman for the Islamic Group to Ikhwanweb.

 
Aziz called on President Mosharraf to step down specially after he violated the constitution and put the Supreme Court Chief Justice and other judges under house arrest.

 
For his part, the Islamic Action Council didn”t issue a united attitude towards boycotting the elections. Its secretary general, Molana Fadl al-Rahman, the leader of the Society of the Ulama of Islam decided to participate in the elections .

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)”s leader, Nawaz Sharif, confirmed that he will support any government formed by the Pakistani People”s Party if it won the next legislative elections .

The parliamentary elections were held in Pakistan on Monday after they were postponed in the wake of the assassination of the former Pakistan People”s Party leader Benazir Bhutto in the city of Rawalpindi two months ago.

In the same context, while the Election Commission is yet to officially announce the turnout or any of the results, the initial trends do not augur well for Musharraf. While the Pakistani People”s Party seems, according to initial results, the biggest winner after garnering 86 seats so far, the ruling PML-Q, which backs Musharraf, seems to be the clear loser.

This means that both opposition parties, the Pakistani People”s Party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) may form a government which will undoubtedly pose a threat to Musharraf”s position, said observers.